Featured App

DigiCal Calendar & Widgets

Today's roundup is presented by DigiCal Calendar & Widgets from Digibites. DigiCal is a complete calendar solution that integrates with Google Calendar, matching it feature-for-feature and then some. A wide selection of calendar views (agenda, day, week, month, text month, list) and great tablet compatibility means that your calendar will look great and be easy to use no matter what device you're using. DigiCal also includes a variety of widgets, all of which put the stock Google Calendar to shame, and integrated location search within the app. DigiCal even checks Google Now for travel and traffic time, letting you know when you'll need to leave to avoid being late. The standard DigiCal is free, but the $4.95 DigiCal+ includes a month widget, extra visual options, and zero ads.

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Experience the most stylish Android calendar with Holo light and dark themes with 6 powerful calendar views and 5 beautifully designed widgets! DigiCal is a stylish and easy to use calendar application that syncs all your appointment with Google Calendar. You can choose from 6 powerful calendar views (day, week, agenda, month, text month and list) in both portrait and landscape mode. DigiCal also comes with 5 beautiful widgets (list, grid, day, day list and month). Following the latest Android Holo light and dark theme, DigiCal is bringing the clean and intuitive user interface experience to smartphones and tablets running Android 2.2+. DigiCal’s innovative features such as the smart action bar make it easy to edit, move, copy, paste and delete events. With our unique built-in location search, adding a location to your event has never been easier. All you need to do is type in the name of the place (cafe, store, and park) and DigiCal will automatically look up the address and save it. With this feature, Google Now (Android 4.1+) knows where you'll need to go. It'll watch current traffic, plan your route and notify you when you should leave.

Apps

Sochi 2014 WOW

The Winter Olympics are coming, in case you needed telling. Between now and then you're going to see dozens and dozens of scoring and general update apps, but Samsung's is well-designed and features at least one thing that others don't. In addition to standard scores and news, Samsung's WOW app will explain some of the more tricky sports and events, for those of you who don't religiously follow the international cross country skiing and rifle shooting circuit. You don't need a Samsung device to download the app.

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WOW (Wireless Olympic Works), It’s the Wireless information dissemination specially developed for the Olympics Games. It offers the most direct access to Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games and allowing consumers to design and personalize their experience in ways that are most relevant to their interests and passions, WOW is ready for use throughout the Games, both for consumers looking for the ultimate Olympic Games experience, and for the Olympic Family utilizing our technology to support Games-time operations.

Beats Music

Do we really need another subscription music service? Well whether we do or not, Beats is ready to deliver one. This Google Music and Spotify competitor offers the usual unlimited streaming and wide song library, but it also has a unique playlist creator, asking users to complete "the Sentence" with emotional queues to match your mood. There are also curated playlists and a unique but surprisingly functional user interface. $10 a month gets you access, with a one week free trial (or much longer if you're an AT&T customer).

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Beats Music is a new kind of streaming service that combines the best music experts and technology to always deliver you the right music at the right time. All you have to do is hit play. Access over 20 million songs, from every genre. Listen instantly or save to your device to listen to offline. When you’re not sure what to play, lean on us.

Dash

Dash is a digital readout for your car that connects to a standard onboard diagnostics device (OBD) with Bluetooth. It's smart enough to tell you where you've been and how good your driving is, but it also has a live efficiency readout, a database of gas prices, and the capability to alert your friends and family if you're in a crash. Best of all, it can diagnose basic problems with your car... and tell you how much it will cost to fix them. At the moment, Dash is intended primarily for US vehicles.

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Smarter. Driving. Everyday. Connect your car to your smartphone, and unlock enhanced performance, cost savings and social driving. Dash connects your smartphone to your car with a simple, low-cost device which you can install yourself - simply reach under your steering wheel and plug in in. No mess, no mechanic, no problem. You can now connect your phone to your vehicle, by pairing via Bluetooth. Ready, Set, Dash.

Stack Exchange

Stack Exchange is a group of targeted communities with question and answer knowledge bases for a ton of subjects, most of which are technical. If you've ever Googled how to tinker with your WordPress site, for example, you've probably come across one of their pages. This is the official Stack Exchange app, tied into the main site and more than 100 others with a staggering depth and breadth of information.

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Stack Exchange is a network of 100+ question and answer communities on everything from software programming to cooking, photography, and gaming. With this app you can:

• Track all your interests in one place with the new combined feed view• Get instant notifications when you receive an answer or comment• Search for questions, or browse by tag• Ask, answer, comment and vote on questions

Level Money

Managing your money is vitally important and often dreadfully boring, which is probably why accountants tend to do pretty well, in multiple senses of the word. Level tries to make money management much more engaging with a fantastic UI and some more human terms, displaying your available money as spendable cash. You'll have to trust Level with access to your banking info - no small potatoes - but for those looking for a little financial insight, it might be worth it.

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Level is the radically simple, digital equivalent of opening up your wallet to see what you can spend today, this week, or this month. All you need to do is link to your bank account(s) – including checking, savings and credit cards. Level does the rest. Once your accounts are linked, Level automatically calculates total income, savings and recurring bills. What remains becomes ‘Spendable’ cash, showing you exactly how much you can spend that month, week or day.

Udemy

Udemy is, for all practical purposes, an online community college. Taking a course from the service probably won't let you transfer credit, but it's generally comparable to the cost of a "real" course. The Android app lets you browse, enroll, and pay for the entire catalog of Udemy courses, from yoga to business marketing... with prices to match. Fortunately it looks like the designers put considerable thought into the user interface.

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Udemy is the world's largest destination for on-demand, online courses. Whether you want to get promoted, break into a new industry, start a company, further a passion, or just accelerate your life, Udemy has a course to help you get there and get there faster. When you download the Udemy Android App, you’ll join the over 2,000,000 people who have already made the decision to accelerate their lives by taking a Udemy course.

Thingiverse

The 3D printer revolution isn't quite here yet, but if you'd like to speed it on its way (and especially if you've got one of your own), then here's the official MakerBot app. It doesn't actually interface with any hardware, it's more of a gallery for MakerBot's Thingiverse design center. Featured designs and a bit of social magic make the Thingiverse app a lot like an Instagram for nerds. Well, 3D printing nerds, anyway.

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MakerBot's Thingiverse is a thriving design community for discovering, making, and sharing 3D printable things. As the world's largest 3D printing community, we believe that everyone should be encouraged to create and remix 3D things, no matter their technical expertise or previous experience. In the spirit of maintaining an open platform, all designs are encouraged to be licensed under a Creative Commons license.

GMD Air Command Shortcut

Samsung's Galaxy Note series gets some handy-dandy apps that other Samsung devices don't, courtesy of the Air Command menu opened by the stylus. But what if you're the type of user who could take that S-Pen or leave it? Then Good Mood Droid, creator of numerous useful little tools, has your back. This app lets you add shortcuts to the Air Command menu to your homescreen, or any other app (like SwipePad) that uses shortcuts.

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Creates Air Command shortcut that displays Samsung Air Command menu on Note 3 and other devices that have it.

Disclaimer: 1) This is not Air Command app itself. It just shortcut to stock Samsung app. Your device has to have Air Command already in order to use this shortcut. 2) Note that Scrap Booker action does allow finger input so it will wait for S Pen input.

Viddme

Uploading videos to YouTube is stupidly easy in Android, but it does have one drawback: they're connected to your Google account. If you want fast and (ahem) discreet video uploads with easy sharing, Viddme will throw your video up on its servers without even asking for an email account. It's basically Imgur for video. If all you want is a quick share without messing with the usual muss and fuss of a video service, give Viddme a try.

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Instant video sharing. Viddme turns videos into links. It's like Imgur for video. Record a video and get a http://vidd.me link to share anywhere. No signup or login needed. Share videos anonymously if you want to.

AirPlay Recorder - AirRecord

AirRecord is a simple app that records an audio stream from an Apple AirPlay-enabled device. You'll need to be on the same WiFi network for it to work. It's not clear exactly how or why recording a song from an iPhone would be better than, say, just getting the MP3 file, but if you want it, here it is. AirRecord comes from DoubleTwist, makers of the self-titled iTunes sync app and music player, so you can be sure it will get some decent support.

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AirRecord: use doubleTwist's AirPlay Recorder to record iTunes audio and radio to your phone or tablet. Brought to you by the creators of the popular AirSync and doubleTwist Music Player, the AirPlay Recorder saves songs and radio stations that you stream from iTunes to your Android device. It is extremely easy to use: play something in iTunes on your Mac or PC and then select "dT Recorder" from the AirPlay device list (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5922). The streamed audio tracks will automatically be saved on your Android device.

Johnson & Johnson Seven Minute

There are plenty of variations on the popular 7-minute workout idea, but if you want yours with an international mega-corp behind it (and, admittedly, some pretty snazzy user interface touches as well), give Johnson and Johnson's a try. The exercises require no special equipment, and the app has guided walkthroughs of the various mixed sessions and integrated videos explaining the exercises.

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A Scientific, Personalized Fitness Experience in 7 Minute Intervals. From the inventors of the viral fitness hit 7-Minute Workout and fitness experts from Johnson & Johnson comes the Official 7 Minute Workout App. The Johnson & Johnson Official 7 Minute Workout App contains the now-famous 7-minute fitness routine that requires nothing more than a wall, a chair, and a little bit of floor space. Perfect for home work outs or fitness on- the-go.

Quickr - Action Launcher

Another week, another take on the swiping launcher idea. This one gets a few points for originality thanks to its contextual zones, which allow for precision placement of apps, shortcuts, and settings toggles, each of which can be given multiple pages. Like all these apps, you can launch it via hot zones on either side of the screen from any app. And before you ask: yes, it has a flashlight toggle.

CamFind - Visual Search Engine

The idea of searching via image is nothing new, but usually you need an identical image to start with. If you've ever needed a highly accurate and precise search which is unfortunately lacking in any kind of verbal context, such as "what the Hell is that thing?", then CamFind is probably what you're looking for. It will also work as a basic QR code reader and price comparison app, which should let you free up a little space in your launcher tray.

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CamFind is the very first successful visual search engine that can photograph, identify, and provide information on any object, at any angle which was already a huge success on iOS with over a million downloads in less than 6 months. Forget about typing queries into your browser to get information, instead use CamFind to take a picture and learn.

HomeSlice Beta

Living with roommates can be great, but more often than not the competing demands on time and money are stressful. HomeSlice attempts to alleviate them with a cross between a social network and a fridge whiteboard. Roommates can see what home keeping supplies and groceries are needed at a glance, whose turn it is to do what chores, and who's a week late with the rent. Also, it has profiles, in case you and your roomies are so busy that you've never actually seen each other's faces.

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HomeSlice is a comprehensive technology that encourages accountability and transparency between roommates by allowing them to create a private social network equipped with all the tools necessary to stay on top of household supplies, chores and bills. WHITEBOARD: We’ve taken the traditional whiteboard seen in every college home and made it the hub of communication so that roommates can easily communicate about household supplies, chores and bills or even weekend plans.

Zoute

Public transit is tricky, especially in an unfamiliar city. Zoute isn't the first public transit guide we've seen (not by a long shot), but it does have at least one unique feature: a "nearby" stop function shows you only the bus or train stops within walking distance. Right now it's really useful for San Francisco, and only San Francisco, but the app description says the developers are working on adding more cities.

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Zoute makes public transit easy. We recognize that public transit is often inconvenient. Zoute helps you identify the bus and subway stops closest to you, tracks your routes in realtime, and quickly takes you to your favorite destinations - all from our free mobile app. Let us take you there. Real time departure information - You’ll know when your bus is going to be here.

glasses.com (beta)

Either the most fun or the most tedious part of going to the eye doctor (depending on your attitude towards fashion) is trying on all those glasses frames. Glasses.com is giving you that experience on your app, and impressively, the experience doesn't end with a selfie and a selection. The app "scans" your head as a 3D model, and you can select up to four pairs of glasses for a trial run after they ship them to your address.

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With glasses.com, you can virtually try on thousands of glasses and sunglasses to see how you look from any angle in photo-realistic 3D. Try on frames from Ray-Ban, Kate Spade, Oakley, Burberry, Maui Jim and more — scaled to fit your face correctly.

• See thousands of frames rendered on your face in 3D. • Turn your head to see glasses or sunglasses from any angle. • Adjust the glasses up or down your nose or over your ears – just like real glasses. • Share your favorite styles and ask friends to vote on what looks best on you. • Purchase your favorite glasses or sunglasses directly from the app. • Add high-quality prescription lenses starting at $59.

Yellofier

Digital music creation isn't exactly an intuitive process at the best of times, and without the aid of a mouse and keyboard, it's downright tedious. Yellofier attempts to shift the paradigm with a unique user interface which is tailored for creating new musical tracks rather than editing them. The capability is pretty robust (at least by mobile standards) thanks to a 16-track editor, and the app includes 48 bundled tracks.

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Edit the sounds and effects by moving and twisting colored blocks. Yellofier doesn’t look like any other music program. You can create a full song within minutes – even without knowing anything about music. Create unique music with your own sounds and with the sounds of Yello’s musical maestro Boris Blank. The Yellofier also includes sounds and songs by some of the greatest musicians within electronic music. Anything can be yellofied.

Picklor : Camera Color Picker

Graphic designers will love this one. Picklor does one thing and one thing only: it finds and identifies colors via your device's camera. See something, shoot a photo, and get a hex or RGB value lickety split. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from doing the same thing with a regular photo once you get back to your PC, but Picklor will let you save it socially via Android's standard share menu.

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Picklor is a simple application which helps us to find the right color and compare colors. Picklor designed and developed by 888Stub, basically works as a color picker. Basic working is simple. You move your camera to particular point. You can get the color at that point. You can save it and compare it with another color later. Practical usages are many. Say you want to buy a matching bag to your dress. You save the color of the bag. You compare the color of the shoes with the bag.

Studio Design

This is Instagram with some pre-made word art thrown in. That's it. You can read through the app description down there to hear some lofty talk about design and artistic creativity, but it's just a bunch of filters, fonts, and logos. If you need a quick and dirty cover for your indie rock band's iTunes debut, this is the app for you.

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The design app for everyone. Create & share amazing designs with your friends. Studio makes it easy to let your creativity run wild with these great features: 'Remix' any design from any designer. Over 500 free shapes, crops and fonts. Powerful photo filters and controls. Scale, position & color any design element. Easy export to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Search the Studio community for inspiration.

Smile Mom -between mom friends

Attention new mothers: your baby is not special. It is no different from millions of other crying, pooping, and dripping protohumans crawling around a million living rooms right now. If you feel the sudden urge to email me death threats (that's Michael with an -ael), then Smile Mom is for you. It's an extremely targeted social network that's just for moms, with a focus on infant care tips. An aftermarket for used baby clothes and supplies is a nice touch.

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Smile Mom is the best place for mom friends to stay connected. Share the stories of raising your kids with friends-turned moms or other moms-like-you in your area. Group chat between mom friends to exchange parenting tips. The perfect place for moms to overcome isolation after having birth, busy working moms to exchange tips on parenting and work&family balance, or sell those used baby products that you no longer need.

Olympic TV

Here's the official Olympics app from the International Olympic Committee, complete with live video from at least some of the events in the Winter Games. Here's the catch: the IOC isn't broadcasting video to any country where a media company has bought the rights to the Games. That means that if you're reading this, statistically this app is probably useless to you. Most of the countries it works in are in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean.

Motorola Gallery

Motorola is still releasing at least one new app a month, if you include "part of the barely-customized software on the Moto X" in your definition of new. This one is a pretty inoffensive interpretation of the standard photo gallery, though for some reason your Moto X, Moto G, or 2013 DROID has to be on Android 4.4 to receive the automatic update from the Play Store. It'll do, but if you want a better gallery app, there are plenty to choose from.

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View and share your photos and videos in an immersive, full-screen experience. Easily personalize your photos with frames, filters and more in just a few taps.

WTF App(s) Of The Week

Pyrography

"Touch a wood." "Smell it." "Unbelievably pleasurable feeling." There's something about the promotional images for this woodburning app that makes me very uncomfortable, and it's not the guy who's apparently being set on fire by his phone.

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The first and only pyrography simulator. Tons of fun in a little application. Hours of good time. Two instruments: magnifying lens and pyrograph and two completely different game modes. Manually selected wood as canvases. This game is not just a pastime it’ll help you create real works of art.

ERGO

ERGO lets you unlock your phone by pressing it to your ear. With, uh, your ear-print. Because that makes sense, right? Whenever I need to check my email, I always raise my phone to my ear and press it firmly to my noggin for at least a second before doing anything else. I suppose this might be useful for quickly answering calls, but only if you never stop to see who's calling you first.

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ERGO (Patent Pending) is a biometric authentication application designed specifically for Android smartphones. By combining the most natural of all phone gestures - lifting your phone to your ear - with the unique geometry of your ear, we have created a robust and reliable mobile device security solution that is easy to use, non-invasive and non-distracting.

Comments

been waiting for an app like Viddme forever. I normally skip this article serious but glad I read this one!

Matthew Fry

Viddme has 3 screenshots and one of them is asses? Hmmm...

Markoff

btw. what about article about Chinese website Shuame.com and their desktop software to update/root almost any chinese phone? it's not localized into English but you can use it even in Chinese, the icons are quite clear, it's foolproof way how to update majority of Chinese phones, it will show you available ROMs and let you update it in your phone without touching it, just updated wife's old huawei C8812 which was running on Android 4.0.3 first to Cyanogenmod A4.1.2 but didn't liked merged partitions plus it was old so risked and updated to Cyanogenmod A4.3.1 (not without trouble, here the SW didn't suceed and phone got stucked on boot logo, but no problem to enter Recovery with Vol+ and Power and update it from there manually, before just had to rename downloaded ROM in computer from .rom to .zip file and then everything went smoothly) so now my wife with her old crappy phone has newer Android than me with 4.2.2, even Amoi A900T which was released just 3 weeks ago still only 4.2.2 (WCDMA version A900W has already 4.3.1 grr), same as our Chuwi V88S, grr...

they have also app called RootGenius to root basically any (not only) Chinese phone (they claim 9000 models), again foolproof, this app doesn't even require installation, just download, launch, plug your phone with USB debugging enabled and click green button and delete. Yesterday rooted Amoi A900T which is in market less than 3 weeks. if you are afraid of CN spyware just uninstall/delete all these apps after using
I ain't fan of chinese spyware so was for long time resisting these chinese apps, but after using it must admit they work and no problem just (ab)use them and uninstall/delete later

Guest

I enjoy nothing more than Chinese spyware on my phone so I guess I should throw some on my desktop as well.